Sha’Carri Richardson a callback to Black track and field Olympic legends

There are ways that sports can feel like a contrivance – predictable phrasing about the “face” of a league or headlines which double as clickbait. It is refreshing when athletes cut through that noise, undeterred by controversy or contempt.

U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson is one of those athletes. It warmed my heart the other day to see her in a skincare commercial for Olay, because even in a deliberate attempt to sell a product, her authenticity and defiance shined through. “Sha’Carri Richardson Melts The Competition,” the ad campaign was titled. Her southern twang and smooth, brown skin were rightfully associated with beauty and brilliance.

With the track and field events beginning, I think of the opportunities before her and the words of another Olympic-sized icon, Muhammad Ali: “I don’t have a mark on my face. …I must be the greatest.”

Saying that Richardson is “for the culture” is an understatement. As she prepares to star on the international stage, her presence is a reminder of what it means to be Black, to be American and to inspire callbacks to track and field legends.

The Olympics are a reminder that four years can feel like forever. We might not have the physique or discipline of the world’s best athletes, but we carry the successes and failures of the last 48 months. COVID-19. Black Lives Matter. Presidential campaigns.

Three years ago, in the face of controversy, we embraced Richardson, her triumph and trauma. We all lost somebody and needed to vent. The IOC had its rules, but they felt rigid. The term “Olympic trials” hits differently now, not just for the athletes, but for all of us. The world feels like a different place since the last Games – a perpetual test of the body, the mind and much more. Richardson’s cosplay as Denard Robinson during her first 100-meter heat at the U.S. Olympic track trials led to an initial stumble, and then, a 10.88 jaunt to the end zone.

“I’m not back, I’m better,” she kept telling us.

Our sister made things right long before she ran the fastest time of 2024 in the Olympic trials final. It’s hard to imagine now that she was an afterthought last year, in the last lane at Budapest at the World Championships, before running down the Jamaicans in the 100 meters. She would anchor the 4×100 relay at those same World Championships, another win for the Americans, but one picture broke through the rivalry and tension. Richardson and the gold standard for the 200-meter dash, Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, embraced after they advanced to the final. It was a reminder of the power of the African diaspora, and a sign that Richardson had healed beyond the heartbreak of 2021.

It is said that you can’t outrun your past, and such an idea is ironic within the framework of track and field. Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100-meter time of 10.49 is in striking distance at these Olympics, and talking about the contenders of today invariably will lead to an appreciation of the sport’s greatest sprinters.

More than a month ago, a YouTube channel with a track-named theme caught up to the legendary Gail Devers, a feat in and of itself. The interviewer, with his rich Jamaican accent, led off the dialogue with a tongue-in-cheek lament of how Devers bested Jamaica’s best, including her stunning photo finish over Merlene Ottey in 1996.

Devers offered a pearly-grinned and playful apology, and then, the interviewer inquired about her nails. “They were a little longer back then. I cut them a couple of months ago,” she said. “[But] they grow fast.”

There’s lineage in those nails, racing DNA. Devers and Flo-Jo are linked through Bob Kersee, the legendary coach (and husband of the incomparable Jackie Joyner-Kersee) whose tutelage is still relevant, as evidenced by the success of world-record holding hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Like Sha’Carri, Kersee also pushed back against controversy and tragedy after Flo-Jo’s passing in 1988:

It has never been proven by anyone that Florence had ever used anything illegal to improve her performance. It has not been proven by anybody that any athlete that I have coached has used any illegal drugs. …Unfortunately, it’s come to a time where athletes and/or organizations play the game of tarnishing someone because if they can’t beat them and it [affects their] endorsements and praise, they say, ‘If I can’t beat you one way, I’ll beat you the other way.

Laymen might think those nails have no function beyond fashion. But they are a sign of strength, and a reminder that over time, what’s broken can grow back better.

Family adds to the mythos of our people. The Olympic Games were built on the rhetoric of gods and goddesses. So many of our legends are built and maintained at the altars of praying grandmothers.

“Everything I am, it’s because of that strong, Black woman,” Richardson said of her grandmother, Betty Harp, to Rolling Stone after the Olympic trials.

“I made her tough,” Harp said of her gifted granddaughter.

There’s a lot at stake in Paris. Devers’ photo finish represents the last time an American woman won the 100 meters. Once again, the Americans and Jamaicans will rival one another. And at the center of it will be a beautiful and brash Black woman.

Folks are saying that the Paris 2024 logo looks like Mary J. Blige. Perhaps when it’s all said and done, they’ll change the bob into an afro.